Friday, September 28, 2012

Last
season, her second working on the Los Angeles writing staff of Franklin & Bash, the cable drama about
two wisecracking men, Dana Calvo realized she had something a little softer to
say.

A lifelong fan of female-focused shows like Sex and the City, Calvo says she enjoyed
watching that show’s fabulous foursome frolic around Manhattan, “and yet I
always felt, ‘Wait, where’s the family?’
So I decided to write a show about a young woman and her life in full –
friends, family and work. I know it’s
not really cool to say, but I wanted to write about a family that is warm and
loving and wholesome.”

Drawing on memories of Christmases spent with her
Italian-American extended family, the Moorestown, NJ native created the comedic
drama Made in Jersey and its heroine
Martina Garretti, whose life and career straddle both sides of the Hudson
River. A lawyer like Calvo’s own sister,
Martina crosses between her homespun life in the Garden State and her new job
as a first-year associate at a prestigious New York law firm. Right away, just as in Working Girl – one of Calvo’s inspirations – Martina catches the
attention of the firm’s founder, Donovan Stark (Kyle MacLachlan) with her
unique body of knowledge.

Calvo knew that making Made
in Jersey work would depend on finding just the right leading lady to
convey Martina’s combination of street and book smarts. “I had a dream that we were going to cast a
Jersey girl right off a turnip truck, and her real story would mirror Martina
Garretti’s,” Calvo remembers with a laugh.
Instead, after considering more than 100 candidates, producers consulted
with their casting director in the UK.
There, in a video audition, was 26-year-old British actress Janet
Montgomery. As Calvo explains, “I saw
the tape, and knew right away ‘That’s her!’”

New Jersey has been heating up for more than a decade, from
the time of The Sopranos to today’s
current spate of reality shows featuring big hair and even bigger drama. And that’s lucky for an English girl who
needs to learn how to tawk. Montgomery says she’d never previously spent
any Jerseylicious time with the state’s Real Housewives – but once she started
her research, “those shows are totally addictive. I watched a lot of them – and then I was told
not to, because we don’t want our show to be that over-the-top. Still, I feel they gave me a good idea of
what Martina would have grown up around.”

Montgomery worked with a dialect coach, and says that once
she stepped out of her trailer in Martina’s considerable coif and jangly charm
bracelet, she was able to find the character’s voice, which she says “now is
second nature. I deliberately started
big, but reined it back in to something that, while it’s obviously a
working-class accent, shows that she’s also an educated lawyer.” The actress says she loves that Made in Jersey is a unique hybrid of law
procedural and family drama – and so does CBS, so much so that after viewing
the original pilot, the impressed network requested the addition of a few more
scenes with Martina’s mom (Donna Murphy) and the rest of the garrulous Garrettis.

“Family is really important to knowing who Martina is,”
Montgomery explains, adding that her own working-class upbringing as the
daughter of a postal worker has given her a particular appreciation for the
character. “I don’t have anyone else in
my family working in this industry. And
so this character whose lives at work and at home are so different, and who has
a family who are very supportive and yet don’t fully understand her job – it’s
been so much like my own life, it’s really amazing.”

In television, Jim co-created an original animated pilot for the Disney Channel, and contributed comic material to four annual Oscar-themed comedy specials airing on Comedy Central, hosted by his husband, Frank DeCaro of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. In 2010, Jim and Frank's comedic music video with Fredrick Ford, "Betty White Lines" went viral, and was featured on The Today Show and CNN's Showbiz Tonight.

Jim has written for entertainment media since his days as the Film Editor for The Daily Pennsylvanian, the college newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with a degree in marketing from the Wharton School of Business. Originally from Wayne, New Jersey, he now lives in Los Angeles with Frank and their mischievous Boston terrier, Gabby.